US: Subaru to expand Lafayette plant

Fuji Heavy Industries’ auto subsidiary, Subaru, enjoys a very good time in the US, where it posts significantly better sales results every month for quite some time.

Now, the Japanese company has announced its decision to move forward with its plans announced last year to upgrade and expand its Lafayette manufacturing facility. The higher than $400 million investment would be made regardless of Toyota’s decision it made last November to ditch building cars at the Lafayette site – the Japanese automaker also has a stake in Subaru.

After it completes the $400 million projected upgrade and expansion, Subaru would also start building at the Lafayette plant from 2016 the new Impreza. While the company announced last year that following Toyota’s decision to end manufacturing there, layoffs among the 3,600 workers were not expected, the decision had an impact on the creation of additional new positions.

According to a report in the Journal & Courier, Subaru would scale back from the 900 positions announced at the start of the expansion plans to only around 50 new full-time jobs.